ABSTRACT
The totalitarians’ claim for total power is not limited by state frontiers. Hitler aimed to unite under his rule first all Germans and then all Europe. If he had achieved both objects it can hardly be expected that he would have stopped there. The Japanese extremists hoped to bring first all East Asia and then the whole world under the ‘Imperial Way’ as they interpreted it. To the Soviet communists the aim has always been world revolution. This, they believe, is not a matter of their preferences but of the scientifically predictable ineluctable process of history. All mankind is bound to advance through socialism to communism, passing in most but not all cases through capitalism. The process is inevitable, but its speed depends in part on human will and action. It is the task of communists to accelerate it, and as far as possible to reduce the wastage and suffering that it need involve. Men equipped with a firm grasp of Marxist-Leninist science can guide history. If they make the right analysis, and apply their Marxist-Leninist knowledge rightly to each specific situation, they can discover ‘the correct’ policy.
